


My November, For You.

by DirtyMartini (Zetaii)



Category: GOT7
Genre: 2Jae, Fluff, M/M, more kinky stuff in chapter 3 oops, smut lol, some kinky stuff in chapter 2 if ur into that, theres a lot of fluff, yeah imma update the ships and tags as we go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8301529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetaii/pseuds/DirtyMartini
Summary: 21 shorts for the 21 ships of GOT7.





	1. 2jae

 

_(n.Nelipot)_

 

_No one walks barefoot._

 

-

 

There was a time when Youngjae got in trouble for walking barefoot. It was in his house, in the town he used to live in, in the wood-made cottage in the middle of the blooming forest which had shades of brown, blues and greens that have not been given names in the colour dictionary yet.

Youngjae often got in trouble for walking barefoot, _’they’re constricting my concentration!_ ’ he’d say, and when the course of life inevitably decided it was his turn to get a little bit ill, cough a little too loud, sneeze a little too much, his mother would always say,

 

_"That’s what you get for not wearing socks, Youngjae."_

 

Debating with his mother was a feat Youngjae had not achieved - instead, he licked his metaphoric wounds with pouts and fancy ideas of running away one day, because that would _definitely_ show them, he thought, and they would _definitely_ let him walk barefoot, then!

Running away in a small town with one school, two local supermarkets (one with alcohol and one without) and an auntie club of gossiping housewives was much more difficult than Youngjae had anticipated, expected and assumed.

This was a big dent in twelve year old Youngjae’s confidence and sense of freedom, so when the lady from the non-alcoholic supermarket grabbed him by the ear and shoved him inside, she said,

 

_’You wouldn’t survive a day on your own, Youngjae.’_

 

And Youngjae realized he did not know the woman’s first name, so he licked his (metaphorical) wounds with pouts and plans of running out of the supermarket before his mother could pick him up, but then his escape plan came inside and it felt like the wind had slammed the supermarket door wide open but, as Youngjae realized after he blinked numerous times, the wind came in a shape of a person.

That was when Youngjae met Im Jaebum, older and stronger and everything Youngjae wanted to be, except that Im Jaebum was wearing socks, and Youngjae always got in trouble for not wearing them when he should have.

Youngjae does not remember what their first exchange of words went like, but Jaebum does. It went a little bit like Jayne Eyre and Mr. Rochester, a little bit like tree scratches on young knee caps and a little bit like the mud on childrens cheeks.

"Don’t your ankles hurt?" Jaebum had asked.

"Not really." Youngjae had answered.

Youngjae never asked him what he meant by that. Figured it was because he was wearing shorts that didn’t reach his knees and sneakers without socks peeking out, mud infecting scratches on his legs, and Jaebum presented himself as the son of the lady of the non-alcoholic supermarket.

He came from very, very far away. Youngjae knew that, because Jaebum said he got there from the capital where he lived with his father, but father had a lot of business meetings to attend and a lot of people to take care of and a lot of money to spend and a lot of police investigations to avoid, so he came to the small town with a forest and a river and sometimes there were cows and sheep.

When Youngjae was twelve, Jaebum was thirteen.

Youngjae does not remember the first time he fell in love, but Jaebum does.

 

-

 

Youngjae is sixteen now, and Jaebum is seventeen and he still wears socks the same way Youngjae does not - they’re friends, bestfriends, apparently, but neither of them would ever say that out loud.

They co-exist with one another, and when Youngjae’s mother calls Youngjae late at night to ask where he is and Youngjae does not answer for the third time in under ten minutes, she has now learned she can sleep at peace knowing they’re by the riverbed, together, on the grass, and Youngjae had a pair of socks in his bag in case he would ever feel cold and need them.

Jaebum would only ever need them. He wore two pairs of socks at once, and Youngjae thought this was very weird of him to do. He stopped asking him why he did that when Jaebum kept repeating that _’I’m cold, that’s why I wear two pairs of socks,’_ and Youngjae kept saying _’but how can you concentrate?’,_ and then Jaebum would reply, _’I just can.’_

Youngjae thinks Jaebum is the most simple person he has ever known. Still, when Youngjae watches and listens to him, he feels like he has unveiled the secret of their little town, and that Jaebum is the source of all the beautiful colours it had.

"What are you thinking about?"

They spoke in questions before they talked in kisses, they conversed with little find-me-outs before they learned what getting to know each other with their bodies was. When his mother awkwardly asked Youngjae if he liked boys, Youngjae (just as awkwardly) said that he did.

Because Youngjae did not wear socks, and, therefore, had nothing to cover up his truths.

Youngjae and Jaebum were the most simple people they had ever met, so when Jaebum asked him what he was thinking about, Youngjae looked at him in the eyes, they rolled over facing each other, and said, "I’m thinking about how everyone is getting girlfriends nowadays."

So Jaebum replied, "Do you want a girlfriend?"

And when Youngjae rolled on his back and awkwardly yelped and screeched like a cartoon character who got interrupted during his confession, Jaebum rolled right with him and kissed his cheek.

"We’ve been together for five years, am I not getting boring to you?"

"You should be getting bored of me."

Jaebum held himself up with his arms in the dirty grass which was damp from the November night rain, the river was flowing wild and if either of them jumped in it, they would have probably drowned.

"You’re the first thing I learned to love in this town," and thus, by direct association, Jaebum learned to love the rest of the town, aswell. "So I don’t want to hear you say that about yourself ever again, got it?"

Youngjae nodded, and when Jaebum put his hand on his cheek, a bit of the mud now dirtying his cheek, everything fell in place - Jaebum leaned in, awkward, bumped noses before touching lips, giggled before they moaned and then they kissed.

In the November after midnight glow of the moon on top of damp grass and little insects staring up at them, Youngjae’s first kiss was with the background music of crickets and the perfect temperature of Jaebum’s embrace and their tongues in each others mouths.

"It’s so hot right now," Youngjae panted out, cheeks red, eyes glassy, his bare feet clutching around Jaebum’s waist. "Jaebum, I think I’m getting a fever."

Jaebum laughed like it was the funniest joke ever. Youngjae meant what he said, but laugther was infectious and when Jaebum kissed him for the eleventh time that night they spent making out by the moonlight, Youngjae giggled too.

With Jaebum’s hands up his shirt, with Jaebum’s hair in his hands.

With Youngjae unconsciously rutting against Jaebum’s crotch and only realizing it when Jaebum moaned in Youngjae’s mouth.

With them giggling, with Jaebum’s hands on his curves.

With a _"thank you,"_ and then, panting loud and horny and blushing and holding on to everything of each other, with an _"I love you."_

The night wasn’t forever, but their lasting relationship was.

When Youngjae returned the next day, sneezing a little too much, coughing a little too loud, and looking a little bit too red on his cheeks, his mother fixed him some chamonille tea and ordered him to spend the day in bed.

 

And then, as always, his mother would say,

 

_"That’s what you get for not wearing socks, Youngjae."_

 

* * *

 

**AN This was so fun to write ! I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, tell me what you think. I guess there are drabbles kind of because I won’t edit these at all and they’re pretty short after all. Thought they’ll range from worryingly kinky to tooth rottingly fluffy. I guess. I’ll treat this like my writers block breaker. Either way, thank you !!! tell me what ship I should do next !!! i don’t even know if there are 21 ships in got7 I failed maths for a reason !!**


	2. JJProject

 

_(n.Sobremesa)_

 

_Where loved ones eat._

 

-

 _(Madrid,_ _11:35._

_Month 16/20)_

 

Jaebum couldn’t ever define Jinyoung.

If he could, then Jaebum would have written dictionaries dedicated to him, written it full in less than a weeks time, five-hundred pages without pictures but with long descriptions of everything physical.

Everything physical.

When Jaebum said it, he meant it, and when he told Jinyoung - croissant in hand and white coffee cup on the tiny plate holding Jinyoung, both sitting on a small table in the botanical garden of their students residency, Jinyoung laughed.

When Jinyoung laughed, Jaebum counted another four pages. One about how his laughter reached his eyes, another about how he was terrible at faking it, the third about the stupidly erotic thickness of his soft lips that would so often wrap around Jaebum’s own callused fingers (and man, did Jaebum knew they were soft) and the fourth about how much he loved it when his most loved loved one smiled so openly towards the world.

"You’re a literature student!" Jinyoung exclaimed, still giggling in his coffee cup.

Jaebum was a literature student, he was a literature student doing his masters. Jinyoung was a performing arts student, performing arts student doing his masters. They were abroad in Madrid, in the lung of Europe - town of graffiti vandalism, warm coloured houses, festivals for every occasion and blossoming flowers of culture which made home feel like the blood pumping the streets of the Spanish city which loved Turkish food more than the actual Turkish people, and creators of the ’siesta’ and biphasic people.

Jaebum was a literature student, and if he was asked to define any word of the terrestrial dictionary, he could answer it with ease and get praised for his quick thinking and critical wits. When Jaebum realized this, he came to the conclusion that there was no other explanation except that Jinyoung was otherworldly instead. Birthed from a flower on Saturn and sent to the Earth to give it a little more colour. Maybe they had words that could describe him there, Jaebum never wanted to visit a planet so badly in his life.

He took a sip of his coffee cup.

"I’ll call it the _Jinyoungtionary_ ," Jaebum nodded to himself, putting his hand on his boyfriends. "I bet it’ll beat the Oxford dictionary in sales."

Jinyoung sighed, blushed, "You’re disgusting," He said.

Jaebum was no translator, but he knew it meant he loved him.

 

 

-

 _(Madrid,_ _01:46._

_Month 0/20.)_

 

They were better than Madrid, they were on top of it.

The city was their kingdom and Jinyoung was the prince who wanted Jaebum to rule with him - they were the elite. They dressed like they came straight of a fashion editorial, they talked about things most people wouldn’t even think about, they walked with class without trying to act the part. They were chic monochrome colours. At the same time, they were living Spanish love of midday naps in a dirty apartment bedroom full of pot plants and flowerpots and every weekend they fucked till it was dinner time. 

They were on top of the loud bustling city of which the pause buttom was broken, but the track itself was a _stu-stu-stu-stumbling_ song with guitars and choirs.

The first time Jinyoung saw Jaebum, it was when Jaebum saw Jinyoung.

Jinyoung was performing at the Teatro Lara, _The Lara Theatre_ , on the street of San Pablo dressed in burlesque fashion and extensions which reached his voluptuous hips and a flower in his hair which was given to him by a classmate who was very much in love with Jinyoung, but Jinyoung could not return his feelings with anything more but a one night fling after their midterms were finished.

Jaebum was a man dressed in black and a checkered scarf covering up half of his face before he was a person. He had two piercings in his eyebrows and he made the November night weather drop degrees just by standing against the brick wall of the backstreet of the theatre. He was a force of nature if Jinyoung had ever seen one. He was taken at first sight.

"You were beautiful," Stranger man said in flawless Spanish, and then he added, "I couldn’t concentrate on anyone else, sorry for being creepy and staying behind."

To which Jinyoung replied, "Are you disappointed now?"

And stranger man said, "No, no - I’m overwhelmed, actually."

Insecurity pinched his world and the colours started draining out more and more after each performance Jinyoung did. Obsessed and on the edge of colourless, stranger man gave him a chance of making the world his own stage, and Jaebum counted for more than a hundred critics as his audience. He performed every single night since that one, and Jaebum made him feel the kind of beautiful he felt like while performing on stage,

 

Off stage,

 

With make up on,

 

With make up off,

 

Dressed,

 

And,

 

Undressed.

 

  
-

 _(Madrid,_ _18:47._

_Month 3/20)_

  
Fighting with each other only meant that they were fed up with themselves.

Trips to the supermarket for new cups and plates was a weekly chore. When Jinyoung smashed Jaebum’s favourite coffee cup on the wall next to him, he mentally counted till ten.

Jaebum gave the silent treatment the same way Jinyoung smashed cups. Jaebum wrote his feelings the same way Jinyoung performed them. Jaebum was taught to contain the same way Jinyoung was taught to express. Jaebum was a writer the same way Jinyoung was a performer. 

The first time it happened, it was when Jaebum felt insecure about Jinyoung’s relationship with his friend Mark who he slept over with more than Jaebum’s self consciousness thought was normal. The second time it happened, it was because Jaebum photographed a nude woman for his photography class. The third time, it was for no reason at all, Jinyoung just wanted to bite and fight so he made up an excuse to push Jaebum against their closet of which the door still hasn’t been fixed.

This time, it was because Jaebum was texting Jackson too much for Jinyoung’s liking.

"Is he attractive to you?" Jinyoung wanted to know. "If he is, will you stalk him till he falls in love with you instead? Is he your next pretty little thing?"

Jaebum shushed him with his lips on his own, with his hands on his wrists pinned against the wall of which the paint was crumbling off and with one of their many, many plants poking Jinyoung’s head from behind.

"Jackson is dating Mark, baby," Jaebum said between the fourth and fifth kiss, having let go of Jinyoung already. "I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the entire world."

Jinyoung pouted. "Promise?"

So Jaebum said, "I promise."

They were better than Madrid, they were on top of it. Jackson and Mark called it toxic isolation and apartment cleaners, the _limpiadoras_ , agreed everytime they picked up trashbags full of broken glass. They were on top of the world, but their passion for each other got the best of them. So their passion ruled their worlds, and it melted into each other.

Just like they melted into one another.

Just like they couldn’t get away from the other.

 

-

 

 _(Madrid,_ _01:59._

_Month 4/20)_

 

Jinyoung recalls the first time Jaebum filmed Jinyoung in bed, they were drunk off box wine, and it wasn’t really on the bed, it was the _concept_ of the bed, on the table against their window which let them look at the Madrid midnight view of toy cars and toy people walking around, and Jinyoung was performing just for Jaebum.

With Jaebum’s thumb in his mouth, sucking on it. With Jaebum calling him _’princesa’_ and Jinyoung looking into the lens of the camera, moaning more than he usually did, and he was a moaner from the beginning, if you asked Jaebum, that spoke volumes for how loud he was for the camera.

Jinyoung loved the camera. Jaebum bitterly realized he could never compete with the exhiliration of the stage, so with this, he looked down on Jinyoung barely hanging on the table, grabbed his chin, smudged his cheeks with the lipstick Jinyoung was trying on before Jaebum grinded up on him.

"You’re a a camerawhore, aren’t you, Jinyoungie?"

Jinyoung, with Jaebum’s dick inside of him, with the plants decorating the picture he was the protagonist of, with the view of the city behind him and the television playing in the background, southern spanish accents now  forever recorded on Jaebum’s prized film labeled as _ANightInMadrid.Mp4_ , Jinyoung looked straight into the camera, holding Jaebum’s free hand with the bit of strenght he could muster up in his limbs, and said,

"Yes, yes I am."

 

-

 _(Madrid,_ _19:01._

_Month 10/20)_

 

"What if I just drop and die right now?"

Jinyoung asked this while he was hanging dangerously over the rails of the rooftop, looking straight down like Jaebum had never seen anyone do. He lifted his leg up, balancing on his toes and his hands on the metal when he looked at Jaebum. Jaebum briefly worried he would actually topple off the highest building in Madrid and crack his skull open for hundreds of tourists - He did make fun of Jinyoung for having a big head, after all.

"You wouldn’t dare." Jaebum laughed, walking towards his boyfriend.

They got exclusive permission to go up during closing hours. Because Jaebum was _the_ Im Jaebum recommended by Oxford University, literature honor student, and son of a major business CEO which had strong ties with the Spanish country, so he could abuse his power with excuses like  _’research’_ to his free will. And he did, Jinyoung taught him how to.

"But what if I did?"

Jaebum thought about it. "Who knows? I might jump after you, or become a tragic artist who’ll write hundreds of paragraphs about you till I kill myself or like, get murdered by my brother."

Jinyoung giggled. "You don’t _have_ a brother."

"Hey, I might have - you know all the big artists had siblings they were unaware off till they got shot dead by them."

Jaebum leaned on Jinyoung’s chest, pushing him over the edge of the roof top, Jinyoung’s neck relaxing and letting all of his weight go, entirely dependent on Jaebum.

He depended on Jaebum.

"Don’t jump after me," Jinyoung said, eyes closed. "Jump _with_ me, Jaebum, let’s die."

For a brief second Jaebum thought he meant it, freezing him in his spot. When Jaebum was about to open his mouth to respond, and he’s afraid for thinking that he was going to respond with a _’yes, anything for you, Jinyoung’_ Jinyoung laughed at him, hyena pitch high and smacked his chest like it was the funniest thing he had ever said in his entire life. 

"I’m _kidding_ , gosh."

Jaebum sighed.

"You’re so special, Jinyoung - this is why I can’t write about you."

And Jinyoung, as usual, would say,

"But you’re a literature student, Jaebum!"

 

-

 _(Madrid,_ _23:01._

_Month 19/20)_

 

Jaebum and Jinyoung first got to know the meaning behind the word  _’sobremesa’_ when Jackson explained it to them when they visited his apartment, which slowly but steadily also became Mark’s apartment, and they were eating homemade tortilla and had _Pasapalabra_ playing in the background while they ate on the dinner table, background noise of the telvision blending in with the noise of mothers screaming at their kids on the second floor, right under the one they were on.

"It’s like, the time you spend with loved ones at the table while eating." Jackson explained.

"Isn’t that just dinner?" Jinyoung asked, confused.

Jackson shook his head, accented English slipping out. "No no no - it’s not just dinner. It’s _sobremesa_. It’s _special_."

"Do you have to eat while you do it?" Jinyoung wondered.

"Of course!" Jackson said as if it were criminal that anyone would suggest otherwise. "You _have_ to eat."

"I don’t get it." Jinyoung said.

"Me neither." Jaebum agreed.

 

-

 

In the end, Jaebum decided that the best way to describe Jinyoung was just like that. By describing moments, and fragments, and memories of Madrid instead. 

Jaebum could never define Jinyoung, but there were many things he could define by saying ’Jinyoung.’

Like the Spanish he could not understand when he first got there, like the siestas, like their apartment which was falling apart. Like spanish November nights, like the depressing amount of homeless people on the streets he walked, like the tapas, like the cocktails they drank, like the warmth of the sun, like burlesque music, like fucking on camera, like space, like beauty in the flesh, like complete and utter devotion, like heartache - like Jinyoung.

 

-

 _(Madrid,_ _23:14._

_Month 20/20)_

 

Jinyoung walked out of his life the same way he walked into it.

Graceful, untouchable, with long brown extensions, with feminine charm and make-up on.

When Jinyoung told him he was not comfortable in Madrid anymore, Jaebum couldn’t act like he didn’t understand.

Because Jinyoung could only be described by memories, and not by words, places or belongings - he made Jaebum fall head over heels in love with him for the first time in his twenty three years of life, and when he told him he was going to Berlin that same night, by himself, all Jaebum heard was that he was moving back to his special place in the galaxy because the stars needed him back.

"I love you, Jinyongie."

Jinyoung smiled.

Jaebum does not remember what Jinyoung’s last words directed at him were. He assumed it was something like ’eat well’ or ’tomorrow’s a new day, baby’, like Jinyoung would always say - but he guessed it was just an ironic and fitting ending for the boy he could never define.

It was okay.

Jaebum was a big boy. He could handle it.

 

* * *

 

**AN My fingers slipped**

**This is super super bad but I had fun and this "fic" is all about getting out of my comfort zone so lol**


	3. Markbum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> id listen to like,, spanish guitar music while reading this but idk

 

_(n.Spanish guitar)_

 

_It's the colour red._

 

-

 

  
Thirty seven year old Mark remembers his twenty first November which made him feel like he was constantly living in the middle of summer. He felt like that, because Spanish guitar melodies rummaged through the streets he and his then flatmate, Jackson, lived in. It was romantic and it was festive, people clapping along to whichever song was playing and a group singing in a language that Mark still did not understand.

Thirty seven year old Mark remembers the warmth he felt dripping off of every syllable of their words, sunshine enveloping his skin in a comforting heat and a perfume which brought him back to ocean waves and eating sand because his childhood friend, Jackson, told him to.

Mark remembers the colours the sky was painted with. Throughout November, they had a yellow base canvas laced with blue and splutters of orange and pink of which the clouds moved. Mark was twenty one years old when he remembered that the clouds moved.

Thirty seven year old Mark remembers his twenty first November,

He remembers his fifth kiss and his first love.

He remembers the wine he drank quickly after he remembers how he and Jackson used to drink their parents supply when they were fourteen and pretending to be adults - when they were twenty one, they drank wine to remember the time when they were kids.

"I miss those days, you know?"

His response was the tune of the _Porompompero_ echoing on the balcony and the scent of nicotine wrapped in cigarettes reaching him. When thirty seven year old Mark misses the old days, he looks at his husband to remember that they never actually left.

"It's our sixteenth anniversary, isn't it, _miamor_?"

 

-

 

Sixteen years and five break ups prior to that, Mark fell in love with his hands and his fingertips on his guitar before he fell in love with Jaebum. Mark visited the bohemian, artsy cafetaria in which Jackson was hired in - it had poetry nights and everybody wore loose clothes and there was a chair where someone was always on playing the guitar and many chair surrounding it where people clapped and sang to it.

Their first interaction went a little bit like this - Mark was sitting in a circle with his orange juice in his hand, and when the music and the clapping stopped, Jaebum, formerly known as spanish guitarman with an accent, looked at him straight in the eyes.

"Falling in love with me?" He had asked.

Mark forgot that there was a person attached to the guitar, so with the ridiculous assumption of Mark falling in love with anybody at first sight, he gasped, looked at the roughed up boy with black hair and callused hands (Mark had mapped out the anatomy of his fingers before he learned his name) and yelled, "Don't talk - you're ruining the song."

Jaebum took it as a challenge. Sixteen years and five break ups later, he still loved challenging him - in every way possible.

"You'll fall in love with me." He said. _Give it a month time_ , he added silently.

 

-

 

Spanish guitarman with accent was right. Jackson was the first person to tell him that.

Twenty one years old and both of them definitely _not_ doing their linguistics report to keep their scholarship abroad, Jackson playing with a yo-yo on the couch until it begrudgingly rolled away and he did not feel like standing to pick it up, Jackson started their conversation with a sigh and rolling his head on Mark's lap.

"You'll fall for him. He's a Casanova and you're a hopeless romantic."

Mark snarled at this accusation, but Jackson knew him too well to pretend like he wasn't - he had piles of books and diary entries locked up in their closet to testify for it, and funnily enough his dream guy description always had black hair and a guitar in his arms. He brushed Jackson's hair with his fingers.

"Just don't- You know, fall too deep or anything."

Mark did not know what falling too deep was, until he literally hit rockbottom with Jaebum.

 

-

 

They fell in love on the sounds of _Historia de Amor_ , Love's History, on a thursday night in the in the middle of closing hours, and the only people in the bar named _Camino Allá_ was Jackson and another waiter named Youngjae. In the front, there was Jaebum with his feet on the wooden coffee table and he was playing the chords like he was making love to them.

Mark was sitting two tables away from him. A month had passed and they only talked in facial expressions, Mark sticking his tongue out to him at every opportunity, and Jaebum looking at him like he was stripping him off his clothes while he was playing his melodies - Mark was jittery, hot, woefully in denial, and feeling like he was seventeen again.

"You look troubled, Yien." Jaebum said with just a hint of tease in his voice.

Mark did not understand why he called him by his Chinese name, but it felt like he was talking to his soul more than he was talking to anything else - a name only his family and Jackson used, it would have been annoying, with Jaebum, it was breaking down his barriers. Mark gulped, fingered the the cloth of his shirt, and told him, honestly,

"You play really nice."

Jaebum smiled proudly at this. Proud, because he knew that he played good, because he was an arrogant man with a latin charm and words which spilled spice. Mark was feeling warm, his cheeks burning up, his hands clutched together.

"Think of someone you're attracted to, and listen to this,"

He paused for less than a second, and picked up the rhytm of _Besame Mucho_ , slower than the original, and Mark, giggling, closed his eyes.

Jaebum smirked. "Who are you think about?"

Mark giggled. "Jackson."

"Wow," Jaebum was startled. "I'm sorry, I don't play for people I'm interested in when they want someone else."

Mark bit his lip instinctively, imagined what Jaebum's expressions looked like and even considered whether or not he was lying - so he took a breath, and then he took another. Finally, he said,

"You're into me, Mr.Guitarman?"

 

Mr.Guitarman did not answer him, instead, he continued to play with his guitar and Mark, as ridiculous as it was, felt jealous over the object.

"I was kidding, you know," Mark said. "This person has black hair, and a guitar - kind of looks like you."

Jaebum grinned, but Mark didn't see that.

"Funny."

That was when Jaebum should have stood up, swiped Mark off of his feet, the guitar would play by itself and they'd kiss by the moonlight and the sound of Jackson and Youngjae washing dishes  would be the prettiest song he had ever heard in his entire life - but Jaebum was a tease and, on top of that, a very proud man. Because of that, Jaebum didn't do any of it at all.

"Good to know." He said instead.

Two days later, Mark felt the stars on his lips and tequila without alcohol on the tip of his tongue, because he and Jaebum had their first kiss.

 

-

 

"Do you remember our first kiss?"

Mark had asked his husband, sitting on the couch on their balcony and wrapping himself up in the brown, soft blanket he got from the living room - he looked at Jaebum who had changed so much since their reckless teenage years which was a little bit more romantic than the others. Where he used to be roughed up he was now styled in class. The arrogant, rebellious and seductive twenty one year old, however, was always still there.

It was the Jaebum he fell in love with, after all.

All callused hands and arrogance, all spanish accent and mysterious. All rough, all dominating and manly, Thirty seven years old Mark's hormones still go overdrive every time his husband kisses him with his arm around his neck and his other hand grabbing his thigh.

"No." Jaebum said, not looking at Mark.

Scandalized, Mark jumped and sat straight, opened his mouth to talk and then Jaebum laughed, looked at his husband, and smiled.

"I'm joking. Of course I do - you were drunk and I walked you up to your room because Jackson was out of town."

Mark nodded. "And you didn't like me talking about this guy I was flirting with at the bar - you were acting so cool, weren't you? bet you were boiling inside." He poked his ribs, giggling.

"If that helps you sleep at night, bebe, think that way."

"There it goes again," Mark rolled his eyes, leaning back on the couch on their balcony. "What was it that you said? _I want to be the only man you look at Yien, none of them will find your beauty like I do_."

"That's not what I said," Jaebum insisted, calmly. "But okay."

"And then you pressed me against the wall, my poor drunk self, and ravished me in the hallway - hands up my shirt and everything."

"That's-" Jaebum thought about it. "True. You win this one."

"Just like I won your heart, huh."

Jaebum snickered. "It could've been anyone, miamor."

It was the crack in their armour. Jaebum realized the bitter snap of his words seconds after he said them.

Mark laughed, awkwardly. "But we're still here - sixteen years later."

 

-

 

"Don't get cocky, it could've been anyone."

Those were the words he said when Mark and Jaebum broke up for the first time.

Jaebum found safety and comfort in his arrogance - it wasn't like he had a tragic backstory which gave him reasons to act like the way he was acting, not really, his mother was a professionally trained dancer reaching the highest level a person of her kind could reach, and his father was a dance coach who taught him how to truly fall in love with music - they raised him on Spanish, so much that Korean was starting to sound foreign to all of them.

When Jaebum said _don't get cocky, it could've been anyone_ , it was a month in their relationship (after awkwardly asking Mark out climbing up the tree which reached his room in the name of romance) and it was after he accepted the invitation of the new poetry boy to go home with him to prepare for a new piece, a collaboration between artists, he called it - snarled and said that Mark could probably not relate to it. Passive aggressiveness never went well with Mark, he much preferred Jaebum's directness and lack of tact over that.

"You know he's into you, right?" Mark said, hovering over Jaebum who was sat in his usual chair smoking cigarettes and playing the guitar.

Jaebum was unimpressed.

"So? Don't trust me?"

"That's not the point," Mark said, putting his foot down and got yelled at by Jackson to pipe it down. Mark did not listen. "I just don't want you with other boys, you know?"

Jaebum laughed hard at this. So much, in fact, that he almost choked on the smoke of the nicotine and frankly Mark briefly wished he would have. It would have been a lot less painful than to hear the next words which came out of his beautiful mouth, eyes suddenly mean and cold.

Jaebum did not do well with jealousy, Mark figured.

"Listen - I'm your boyfriend, not your little toy you can project your insecurites on. You are not special, Yien, it could have been anyone I dragged home after getting stupid drunk that night, got it?"

He did, deep in his heart he understood that Jaebum was right, albeit harsh with the delivery, but his pride was so much louder than his common sense ever was, so instead, fists balling and tears in his eyes, he kicked the small table Jaebum had his feet on, smashing the glasses on them on the floor, and shouted.

"Well _fuck_ you, I don't want to see you ever again!"

 

-

 

It was kind of comedic how fast they came back running to each other. Frankly, Mark considered it his first victory against Jaebum (and perhaps seeing love as a battlefield was the first of the many mistakes they've made) when this one knocked on his window much later that night, past two a.m, and looked a little bit lost but also like he was doing his best to look cool and stoic and casual.

Which he failed at, because leaves were hanging off of his clothes and his hair, and he looked visibly embarrassed.

"Jaeb-"

"Don't even say it," Jaebum said, but it came from a good place. "I'm sorry. My words were unacceptable - I want you, I really do."

"Thought you were with poem boy?"

"Ditched him to climb up your tree instead."

Mark burst out laughing, and it was funny, because it seemed like all of their arguments ended up with him laughing and then them kissing and touching and loving each other with the same passion Jaebum put in playing his guitar, he touched Mark the same way.

 

-

 

"Leave reminiscing of the past up to the artists, honey." Jaebum told his husband and gently placed the guitar on the floor to kiss him.

The silence they fell in was made up by the melody of their love, and when Jaebum ripped the hem of his husbands shirt wider to show off his gorgeous collarbones for the millionth time in their lives, he kissed them and sucked and left little bites which kept dissapearing again and again over the years - Mark moaned lightly, tangling his hands in Jaebum's fluffy hair, and guided him down to his nipples, then his navel, and then he reached the strings of his sweatpants, pulling at them with his teeth.

"Fuck!" Mark yelled, kicking his leg up and accidentally knocking his husbands chin with his knee. "Have you checked on Dommy's temperature?"

"Oh my goodness," Jaebum laughed, rubbing his chin from the pain. "Yes, Mark, I have - now why were you thinking about our daughter before I was going to fuck you senseless?"

Mark sighed in relief. "Because it's cold out here. If you're doing it, you better carry me to the bed afterwards."

"When have I not carried you to the bed, baby?"

 

-

 

When Jaebum reached the belt of his jeans, he made sure to make a show out of it while Mark's hand was tangled in his hair and pulling shyly towards his body - just for the sake of being closer to one another even though it was already virtually impossible. Jaebum untugged his zipper with his teeth, his belt with the collaboration of his hands, and grabbed it before moving up to Mark's mouth and kissed him hard.

"I want to tie you up and show Jackson how stunning you look," Jaebum confessed, voice hoarse. "But that's for another time," and he smacked the belt away. "Now touch me, Mark, touch me a lot."

Mark barely registered half the words he had said, because his mind went into a frenzy and every time he did anything sexual with his boyfriend of three months, he felt more like an animal than he did like a human. That was the bottom line of it - they were animals, not humans.

So when Jaebum told him he wanted to lock him up in his room forever, Mark was not scared. Jaebum was a free spirit who believed in his freedom and would never restrain his boyfriend from having it. Behind closed doors, stripped down to their underwear and inhibitions, however, he became carnal and possessive. Mark was his, and Jaebum was Mark's.

So Jaebum took Mark in, deepthroated him and he was sure he could only do it because Mark moaned so beautifully when it reached the back of his throat - until he dug his fingers in his mouth, in and out, in and out, in and out and Mark looked lewd, chin covered in saliva and Jaebum's callused, manly fingers in his mouth before he prepped him.

Moments later, Jaebum had turned him around so he could face the mirror in front of him, kissed butterflies on his back, told him he loved him, and then took him whole.

With his fingers in Mark's hair, forcing him to watch himself. 

 

When they finished, Mark slammed down on the ground like a lifeless body, and only then did Jaebum learn that he had terrible asthma. When they finished, Jaebum couldn't help but snap a million pictures of fucked out Mark, lying on the floor, in his memory. He brushed his hair out of his eyes, smiled, and just like that, he carried him to his bedroom to fall asleep together - sticky and sweaty. Neither of them minded it.

 

-

 

It was in the middle of their second year when Jaebum found himself on Mark's couch and drawing figures on the palm of his hands after a long session of fucking him into Jackson's bed - wearing oversized hoodies and Mark was slumped against his boyfriend, humming spanish songs to him.

"You know? I want three kids - and if there's time, seven."

"Excuse me?" Mark snapped awake immediately, staring up at his boyfriend. "You want - how many?"

"Seven kids, and one of them is going to be called Dommy. And a boy called Andrés, you know? Like the guitarist Andrés Segovia."

Mark thought about it - he thought about it for a couple of seconds. Then he plopped back on his boyfriends thighs, closing his eyes and covering them with his arms. 

"Seven might be difficult, but let's get started now, shall we?"

"You can't get pregnant, Yien!" Jaebum laughed, they laughed so hard that when Jackson came back home in that exact moment, he stuck two fingers in his mouth in a gagging motion.

"No offense, but, like, Jaebum totally looks likea father who would walk out and not pay child support, you know?"

 

-

 

And, just like that, that's how the story went. No - no, there are many more pages, but once you've read the first few chapters, the rest becomes predictable. Mark and Jaebum break up a couple of times, (read: five more times) and in one of those times Mark stayed away from him for three months, even beginning a relationship with a boy named Jinyoung instead. That was the third time they broke up, and it was because Jaebum had cheated on Mark with a beautiful latin dancer who could seduce the stars if she tried.

Apart from that, there was a lot of winter warmth, wine bottles and Jackson throwing up in the toilet after partying too hard, all of it beautifully accompanied by the sound of spanish guitars. 

Sometimes Mark wonders why he fell in love with Jaebum, and if he would be so obsessed with him if he didn't have a guitar. The guitar, Mark realized, was just as part of Jaebum as his left arm and his two feet were. At this realization, Mark accepted the role of the damsel in distress, and acknowledged that their personalities were complete and total contrasts - arrogance and crippling insecurity don't mix well together, but with all the hysterics and cold showers considered, it was the weight they were willing to bear.

Because together, Jaebum's music was just so much more beautiful that it was without his gorgeous Yien, and, as a direct consequence Mark's life was so much more musical than it was without him. Bleeding passion red, in the latin streets they lived in, where the Novembers had never felt so summery before.

Many years after they graduated, Mark from telecommunications and Jaebum from business, they adopted a child, and they named her Dommy and she was from Taiwanese descent, just like Mark was. Dommy was the force that got her papa and daddy together during rough times, and even though thirty seven year old Mark and Jaebum don't know it yet - she'll continue to be the bond that will tie them together when they break up again in the near future.

So it's not exactly seven children, a comfortable house without work responsibilities, but when Jaebum went on his knees and asked Mark's hand in marriage at his parents anniversary when they were twenty six years old, he genuinely thought that if it was with his Yien, he could get through it, regardless.

And just like that, the guitar was the music of their lives together - and it bled red, like the passion they had for each other.

 

* * *

 

**The Biggest Cop Out Ending of the Year award goes to me. I was unable to write this week (hence the late updates lol rip all my other fics) but !! we're back and this is really really really bad but like. whatever. thank you so much for reading and tell me what you think !!!**


	4. Yugbam

_Trouvaille._

_(n.Discovered by chance.)_

 

-

 

They discovered one another by chance, when BamBam was sat on his friends porch and smoking a blunt with a beanie on which covered the red tips of his ears and a sweater that almost reached his knees and was zipped up to cover his chin.

It was way past midnight when the police was called to stop the loud, banging music from Jackson Wang's (and his roommates, but law of nature states that Jackson Wang _must_ and _will_ be blamed for everything ever) apartment - from K.Dot to Saba dictating their thoughts for the night.

When Yugyeom walked out the house to take a breather, it was purely coincidental for him to take a left turn and not the right. By direct consequence, he rubbed his eyes when he saw BamBam sitting on the porch of a barely lit house with overgrown weeds and crickets making cricket-y noises and lights flickering on and off without rhythm.

 

_(Inversely, years of videogame experience taught Yugyeom that one should never walk towards the pretty boy on the abandoned porch after a house party, but Yugyeom was feeling especially dumb that night and did it anyway.)_

 

Yugyeom didn't ask him for permission when he sat next to the slim boy covered in layers and layers of clothes, the scent of marijuana reaching his nose and Yugyeom, just dumped by his girlfriend and dazed _Yugyeom_ , was attracted to it.

The music from the apartment could barely be heard, volume low enough for Yugyeom to be able to tell each of BamBam's breaths apart and becoming highly aware of every movement that he made. BamBam knew a stranger was next to him, BamBam did not care.

"Are you Jackson's friend?" Was the first question BamBam asked.

Yugyeom, sighing and dramatic _Yugyeom_ , leaned back on porch and answered. "Yeah," He said, and then he continued, "He got with my girlfriend, though."

 

_(Yugyeom did not mention that they had only been together for three months. Or that Jackson liked her long before Yugyeom even knew who she was.)_

 

BamBam hummed as if he understood, Yugyeom was not sure that he did - regardless of any of that, when BamBam passed him the joint and asked him if he wanted to share, Yugyeom decided that he liked the mysterious fairy in oversized clothes sitting by himself on a house porch.

He never asked him why he was sat there. Jackson had always told him that he was a little bit self centered and loved to talk but hated to listen. Yugyeom, naturally, denied this every single time, and made mental notes to let other people talk without interruption, but these attempts ended up with a _"See? you're doing it again!"_ too many times, so Yugyeom had to face that, perhaps, he really _was_ ignorant to other peoples feelings.

Awkward, he asked the boy what his name was, and where he was from.

"BamBam - I'm from Thailand."

So Yugyeom told BamBam from Thailand, of whom he was still sure was actually a fairy who got lost in the outsides of a sad, rough area, about all of his problems and every thought that crossed his mind while he smoked till his throat got sore and BamBam giggled shyly, stupidly, and Yugyeom suddenly felt self aware in a way he had never felt before.

"Y-Yeah, so my parents kind of forced me into studying law. It's really stupid and I don't want to do it - I hate them sometimes. Actually, I can't say that. It's just like, I want to dance, you know? Then my girlfriend dumps me for my bestfriend, and on top of that I got puked on and I have an essay due on Monday which I will never finish on time. Life just sucks, you know?"

"You're funny," BamBam said, hiding his giggles under his pulled up sweater and holding his stomach. "I wish I could go to university. It seems nice."

Yugyeom didn't get it. He had just told BamBam how not nice university or his terrible, awful life was and here was BamBam ignoring all of that and telling him how badly he wanted to be in his position. He didn't get it. It almost made him feel bad for complaining, and funnily enough, talking was the next best thing he did after dancing.

 

_(Yugyeom was an extremely good dancer. Ironically, it was the one thing he didn't boast about to everyone.)_

 

"Yeah, well, I try." Was Yugyeoms clumsy reply.

They fell into a long, comfortable silence - the blunt burning on Yugyeoms skin everytime it was passed to him a little shorter than before. It hit him from one moment to the other, the relaxation setting in and his heart beating a little bit slower than before.

He looked at BamBam next to him, who finished it up and gracefully put the fire off on the ground they were sitting on. He asked Yugyeom if he wanted another one, and Yugyeom, not usually a smoker, said yes as an excuse to sit there a little longer. And well, he wanted to sit there a little longer because at the time, he felt like he wasn't supposed to be anywhere else in the world.

"Chocolate gives the same effect as weed, it's just a lot less strong." BamBam said matter-of-factly, grinding up the buds and placing the paper on his sweater, placing it on and licking it to seal it closed.

"Shit," BamBam suddenly said, and looked at Yugyeom. "Do you have a lighter?"

Yugyeom nodded, searched in his bag pocket and took the ligther which belonged to Jackson out of it. BamBam put the blunt between his lips and Yugyeom, for a couple of seconds, did not know what he wanted him to do.

That was, until BamBam frowned at him, and Yugyeom dropped the lighter in both embarrassment and surprise. BamBam was a playful person, apparently, but Yugyeom, stupid dumb Yugyeom who could not read people if his life depended on it, did not know that yet.

So he lit it up for him, took a couple of tries because the November wind was chilly and strong and it wasn't until BamBam got closer to him and Yugyeom put his strong hands near the fire to block the wind out when it lit up.

 

_(Yugyeom, although not a stranger to sharing midnight blunts on a Saturday, did not know the ethics of what sharing one with a stranger of whom he was still sure was just a figment of his imagination were.)_

 

"You bring yours the next time, alright?" BamBam said calmly, as if he could see the future and knew that he and Yugyeom were going to stumble into each other at the cafeteria BamBam worked at for minninum wage, as if he knew that Yugyeom was dumbly going to stay there until BamBams late night shift ended, and he would walk him home and they'd exchange numbers.

He said it as if he knew that Yugyeom was going to fall in love with BamBam and that after three months of dancing around each other with tippy toes, they were going to have their first kiss and it was completely on Yugyeom, growing up _Yugyeom_ to realize that he wanted to spend time with BamBam like the cigarette which was burning up.

However, even with Yugyeom's hyperactive imagination and personality prone to believing ghost stories and horoscopes, he knew that this was impossible, and that there was no way that BamBam could've ever guessed that any of that was going to happen.

Neither of them knew it yet. Life is funny that way.

Minutes later, a car passed by and a tall, handsome and chic stranger walked out of it. Yugyeom feared that it was the property owner of the house and that he was going to report the both of them to the police for tresspassing. BamBam, however, seemed unbothered and stood up instead.

"Bam, get in the car. Mark drank himself into the hospital again."

"Took you long enough, Jinyoung." BamBam said, sighing and wiping off the non existent dust on his sweater and jeans. Before he took another step, he looked down at Yugyeom, who was, inversely, looking up to BamBam.

"Nice to meet you, Yugyeom."

"Um. You too."

Jinyoung let out a very ugly laugh at this response, and even though BamBam smiled at him and waved at him, Yugyeom could still hear Jinyoung ask him who he was talking to and if he knew him in the first place. Yugyeom sighed, watching the car become toy sized into the distance - left to his own devices and with no tranquil place to sleep that night, Yugyeom lazily fell asleep on the porch instead.

 _That was a weird dream, I should quit the alcohol._ Yugyeom thought, before his dreams took him elsewhere and even the cold, musty porch could become a comfortable bed if he tried hard enough.

 

_(Yugyeom liked to believe in things like fate, but at that moment, he was unsure of whether or not fate was going help him out and genuinely thought that it was the last he was going to see of BamBam.)_

 

_(Secretely, he hoped that it wasn't.)_

 

_(Call it fate or not, but it wasn't.)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading as always I actually like this one !!!!! idk who to do next !!! also ive never said this anywhere but if you have a tumblr lets follow each other im wangsmixtape but follow from chainedtothechosensons bc tumblr is dumb that way


	5. Markjin.

_“He felt like every inch of him was an inch too much, he called it the rules of their tricky love.”_

-

They were broken up and stripped down to their cores - disoriented like they were vicious alcoholics trying staying sober for a night, met face-to-face with a sudden, uncomfortable silence they weren´t familiar with. They could call it pretty names. Put dramatic tags on what was going on all they wanted; maybe they loved each other too much, or maybe the love was never really there.

It was about making and breaking. It was also kind of like the cliché radio love songs that Mark loved to listen to and Jinyoung would always roll his eyes at. It was irony. It was like three year long April Fools joke. It was _just_ another relationship.

They stripped each other down completely, reduced each other to nothing but their uncontrollable, fractious, undisciplined voices and heavy breaths. Inhaling, exhaling, everything in between.

But their socks were always on.

Together they learned the real meaning of words they thought they already knew the value of.

This was after, and this was before.

It was about heartbreak. It was about happiness. It was about selfishness, and it was also about selflessness. It was about contradictions. It was about complications. It was tiresome. It was difficult. It was exhausting. It was rewarding.

It was about making and breaking. Mark crossed his heart and swore he had another person, Jinyoung knew he was the only person. Because they didn´t know Mark like he did. They didn´t know his good and bad habits like Jinyoung knew them. They couldn´t _ever_ touch the depths of them like he could - Jinyoung would say, between the moans and the gasps and the thumping, thumping _thumping_ of his heartbeat.

He was right, maybe.

They´d kiss and they´d push and they´d pull and they´d take each others shirts off like they were _used_ to doing. It was a rotation, It was a repetition. It was practice. Undoing the buttons of Marks dress shirt and some got ripped off the cloth and on the floor because of it. Whatever. They´d fool around, they´d _consume_ _confuse_ and _improve_ each other all at once. They still did, sometimes. Or most of the times when Jackson - that _other_ person - wasn´t home and Jinyoung promised him love; jeans somewhere on the kitchen floor, shirt fuck-knows-where, their socks always comfortably on their feet. It wasn´t always this impersonal. 

Then they´d wake up alone. A little cold. A little sweaty. A little sticky. The bedsheets were tussled a mess. The waterbottle would be knocked down. Books from the shelf would be on the floor. They´d already feel tired.

Sometimes they´d wake up together, though. They´d wake up together and they´d eat breakfast together like before; sometimes they´d be in their jeans and a shirt with the newspaper on page seven and the radio playing in the background on channel nine, because Mark loved listening to it in the morning and Jinyoung, overtime, got used to it. Other times they´d be lazy and in their boxershorts on the couch, eating month-old cereals in front of the television and keeping the curtains closed all day long.

Just like they used to.

It was about making and breaking. Mark would break, Jinyoung would make; their relationship and the bit of trust left between them, the bottles at the bars they´d get kicked out for and Jinyoungs phone which got smashed against his kitchen door because _you´re cheating on me, Jinyoung, you´re cheating on me_. Pretending, paying for the broken glass and buying a new phone. Jinyoung was always good at sticking superglue on the unfixable.

Mark would know.

He´d tell him to please please _please_ not to talk to him, to please please _please_ not cover for his outburts, to please please _please_ not even look at him - Mark cried a lot. Random but never unexpected. It was fine. It was okay. Jinyoung learned how to handle it.

It was about breaking and making. At some point Jackson put his bright colours in their monochrome painting. Yellow, orange, wet and fresh and colourful in a rock bar with lots of thick smoke and loud bass that Mark and Jinyoung would frequent. Jackson would ask if they were a couple - always looking at Mark; at his collarbones, his eyes, the thinness of his fingers. They´d say yes.

Jinyoung wouldn´t even clear his throat. He wouldn´t put an arm around what was his. He wasn`t jealous. He wasn´t afraid. He didn´t feel threatened.

A week later and  _still_ in the middle of the smoke and bass and sweat and shouts and guitar-riffs and beer and _more_ beer he´d asked Mark again - this time looking at his neck, his lips and the muscles of his arm. He´d say no. They weren´t. He was alone. He hated Jinyoung. He promised he did.

Mark had never really fallen in love between pints of beer and glasses of malt whiskey - but there was a first to everything, Jinyoung was his first in everything. Jinyoung was tall and elegant and controlled. Jackson was short and wild and wore his heart on his sleeve. He was colour and Jinyoung was monochrome. Jackson was a sea of waves and Jinyoung was a still ocean waiting to attack the shore. Jackson gave Mark everything he could ever ask for. Jinyoung just loved to be a contrarian. He´d fight with him a lot about that. Told him that if he has any problems with himself he should go to a psychologist and not take it out on him. Jinyoung always told him it was just the way he was, and if he didn´t like it, nobody forced him to stay. Then Mark would sigh and after a few days of war-silence they´d apologize.

Jacksons personality was a good hold-on for him. It was the wisdom of knowing when to say no and when to say yes. It was a line that became clear and blurred into incomprehension whenever he was with Jinyoung - it was like being intoxicated, like consequences didn´t exist, but _now_ and _need_ and _please_ did. That was the effect Jinyoung had on him. Serious contrarian Jinyoung who was a fluffball of love and affection when he wanted to be whom he loved so much. He loved him so much. It was complicated.

Jackson worked on the weekends in a place very far away. He´d told Mark exactly where at some point, but Mark had forgotten every word of that conversation, secretly looking forward to not have him to hold him down on the ground and not let his head go to the clouds to fall in love with Jinyoung all over again. And again. And again.

Jackson trusted him. It made him feel like absolute shit.

It was about making and breaking. It was an October Saturday night, somewhere, it could have been anywhere, really. It wasn´t that uncommon or strange or especially dramatic - between the washed sheets and their socks on, never setting an alarm up for the next morning and not caring nearly enough about anything to lock the doors when they were supposed to.

It was about breaking and making. Jinyoungs apartment felt like a whole entire different universe. Like it wasn´t on the same planet the rest of people shared. It was like a stranded island only they two knew about.

The door creaked too much. The refrigerator buzzed too loud. The lights would flicker for no good reason. The kitchen was too clean. The colourful books were always ordered differently. There were bottles of absinthe that suited as decoration which Mark found stupid. There was a red couch that was too broken. The apartment was small and cozy and it had the scent of the perfume Mark would always put on. Like coconut. 

Their conversations got shorter  - they tried less; they didn´t have the energy or will to even fight anymore - ring the doorbell and then get lost when the door shut closed. That was the only unofficial and unspoken rule they had. It was easier to do when they were high or drunk or a mix of both. But sometimes they were completely sober, which kind of felt like playing strip-poker in more ways that one; exposed, but strangely, not at all uncomfortable.

It was familiarity. It was a well-known song they knew the lyrics to. It was a beat they created. 

This time it was Mark who rang the bell and this time it was Jinyoung who opened the door - shirtless with a joint between his lips, unimpressed with Mark standing in front of him, wet from the rain, hair dripping, sweater soaked.

“Come in.” Jinyoung said.

They broke up two months ago. Jinyoung was shocked they lasted that long. Two months ago Mark had moved out - mostly - leaving only some lingering feelings and his DocMarten boots behind in an apartment that he didn´t pay for.

“Want a drink?” He asked.

He wasn´t expecting an answer. He never got one out of Mark, anyway, so in a way he was actually kind of mocking him. It didn´t feel good nor bad. It actually felt kind of sad, but at least he muted the television which was playing nothing but bad action movies he had seen a million times before and worse reality shows he and Mark would sometimes indulge in when they were together. If just to make fun of how stupid it is.

“I´m here for my stuff.” Mark said.

Neither of them believed him. It was a slow kind of killing.

And surely, just a little over an hour passed and Mark was very much pressed down on the matress, so harsh and hard he suddenly forgot _how_ to breath - how to inhale and exhale and everything in between, his vision went static, his nose forced down on the sheets which smelled so ridiculously familiar Mark felt almost comfortable in the pain.

It started like it usually did; with small talk, with Jinyoung asking - finishing up his blunt - how things were going with Jackson. Mark would respond with sounds and single words more than coherent sentences.

“He´s fine. Working. The usual.”

Jinyoung would always look at him funny when he said that. The usual was a bad habit. The usual for Jackson was that one of a workaholic - producing music, getting rejected, producing music again, writing down lyrics, get rejected for a second time, start from scratch until you don´t sleep for three days in a row. It was productive and it was bad for his health.

At least it earned him money, unlike Marks usual which just meant sitting in his couch. Overthinking, overdrinking, overcompensating, overeverything. 

Their usual was toxic. More so back then when they fought about it than now. Mark lost consciousness in the middle of it, he was convinced he was going to choke and die in Jinyoungs bed with his face pressed into a pillow that used to be his. He was harsher and rougher than usual, arching his back to his limits and pulling his hair like he thought Mark was some unbreakable doll he could have his way with. 

At that point, Mark felt like he was.

It was tactless. It was kind of rude. It was tricky. Kind of like their love.

They still kissed and at first Mark didn´t want to. Ironically he was also the first to do it, post-break-up and before they even started dating four years ago as highschool seniors.

Jinyoung looked like the textbook definition of a sheltered overachiever,

but he never played the part. Jinyoung was brash and wild. Jinyoung smoked too much. Jinyoung didn´t like to stress about anything in his life. He wasn´t sheltered in the least, and when his parents all too gladly kicked him out for kissing the neighbour boy on his bed at midnight, Jinyoung told Mark he couldn´t care less if he tried. Mark always thought Jinyoung was cool. Which is why he kissed him on a train platform the same day he was looking for a place to crash before heading off to university.

Needless to say, they moved in together pretty quickly. They had the same major in literature and they went on dates that Mark loved.

Jinyoung couldn´t decide if it was that or the bunny-like fucking they were doing which he liked best.

Whichever it was, both had Mark in it. So there was his answer.

It was about making and breaking. Jinyoung was one to smoke after sex - desk lamp on making him seem tanner than he already was. Mark was one to stare at his partner after sex - figuring out his flaws and all the little details, the shape of his nose and the shape of his eyes, how hydrated or chapped his lips were, figure out the exact number of shades in his hair, on his complexion, figure out whether his hands were callused or not, fingernails dirty or clean, teeth straight or a little crooked.

Mark knew all of them already, though; from his fingernails down to the shade of his complexion. 

Because four years is an investment of time. It´s not a weekend lover or a summer fling. It´s not a honeymoon and it´s not puppy love. Four years has a shit ton of highs and lows and dirty inbetweens rotting and rotten throughout the years. Enough chances to do things wrong. 

His phone vibrated, it vibrated for a while. Seven missed calls and three messages from Jackson with a heart at the end of his name. It was Jinyoung who snapped Mark out of his hyponisis of staring at him by throwing the phone in his face - Mark should probably change the password of his phone. 

_"Hey baby, I finished work early today. Guess what? I got a deal with a megahouse in Germany! Anyways, my mom really wants to meet you and it´s her birthday tomorrow so do you want to come back home with me? Love you always, I´ll be there in a couple of hours. xx"_

Mark read the words individually and not like a complete sentence. The feeling was asphyxiating, like every inch of him was an inch too much; dizzy and sick to his stomach, his hips and neck and everywhere where Jinyoung touched him just then feeling dirty.

“You´re gonna head to his place, I´m guessing.” Jinyoung said, put the cigarette down in the ashtray, looked at the other man in his bed. He guessed right. “You should hurry, he might realize you´re sleeping with another guy.”

It was strange to say that there was no spite in his words. There was no anger. No mean feelings. If anything, it was a little sad. 

"I´m tired," Mark said. "I don´t want to move."

"Then don´t."

Jinyoung was a complicated person. Complicated over everything but the emotions of others. If you want to do something, do it. He´d say, and it´s what got him through most of the unfairness he had received in his life, things he never asked for and didn´t think he deserved. It´s why he never got angry, no, being emotional was Marks job in their duo; it´s why Jinyoung didn´t try to stop Mark when he wanted to break-up, didn´t try to stop him when he said he was going to go back to his parents, never tried to correct him when he got angry and left for days without answering any calls or messages over an unjust accusation of Jinyoung cheating on him.

Jinyoung cheated on him, he said.

He never did.

"I love you."

"That´s unfair, Mark." Jinyoung said, and walked towards the kitchen to drink some water, the silence of the night making everything more intimate, the dim orange light of his apartment feeling like the only light in the entire world at that moment.  "But...I love you too."

Mark picked up his clothes from the floor, tired and exhausted, a bit lost in everything.

"You know, I thin-" He thought about it. "Actually, no, nevermind. Goodnight."

Jinyoung looked at him sadly, his hands on the doorknob and he knew he was doubting something, eating himself up over something he wanted to say.

"I never cheated." Jinyoung suddenly said. "Just so you know, while I was dating you, you were the only one I had eyes for."

Mark shut his eyes, forced them closed and his grip on the doorknob became tighter. He was going to cry and he felt like that was the thing both of them needed to do but never let themselves break down completely. But he didn´t do it. If he was going to cry, he was going to do it outside and feel miserable on his own. 

Jinyoung wanted to see if he would react, but before he could say anything else, Mark muttered something incomprehensible that he couldn´t hear and the door slammed shut.

"Oh hello Mrs.Jacksons mother, I just got fucked by my ex-boyfriend last night while your son was making money. Happy birthday." Jinyoung mocked, staring at the ceiling, knowing Mark could still hear him. "Sounds nice."

Mark wanted to throw up and never go back there again, be nice to the people who were nice to him, but oh, he realized.

He realized he left his DocMarten boots behind.

So he was standing in the elevator, just with his socks on.

* * *

 

**an I wrote this before but felt like it was more fitting here and I switched some things up, thank you for reading !**


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